GURNETT E. FERGUSON

Business has its pioneers as well as other fields of endeavor, and
it sometimes requires as much courage and originality to succeed in
the realm of business pioneering as it does to blaze new trails in
the wilderness or to sail uncharted seas. One of these business
pioneers of the race in West Virginia is Capt. Gurnett Edinburg
Ferguson, proprietor of the Ferguson
Hotel of Charleston. Capt. Ferguson is a native of Edgewater,
W. Va. His father Daniel Ferguson was a farmer and truck gardener,
and he was the son of Daniel and Julia Bagley.Capt. Ferguson's
mother was Miss Sarah Elizabeth Eddens, daughter of Lucy and Peter
Eddens.

As a boy, young Ferguson laid the foundation of his education in
the public schools of Charleston. From the public and high schools
he passed to the West Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute,
graduating in 1922. When he was able to secure teachers license, he
began teaching in the rural schools of the State. As his work in
this field became known, his services were in demand so that his
last work as a teacher was at Huntington, whose schools are known
to be among the best in the State. While in school he was active in
college games and at Huntington had charge of school athletics.

With the outbreak of the war he volunteered and went to the
officers training camp at Des Moines. He was commissioned Captain
and sent to Camp Grant, where he trained Company M., 365th
Infantry. When his command went over, Capt. Ferguson remained in
America to defend some colored soldiers who were involved in a
grave charge, and his conduct of the case won for him the
commendation of Gen. Martin. Later he went to France on a transport
carrying 1,700 men, and being the ranking officer on board was in
command of the troops. He was the only Colored officer who
commanded a transport.

It is as a business man, however, that Capt. Ferguson is best
known. When discharged from the service, he returned to Charleston
and resumed his business and real estate operations. A man of good
business judgement and an excellent judge of values, he had already
won confidence in financial circles.

Observing the rising tide of prosperity and the consequent
tendency to travel on the part of the people, he conceived the idea
of developing in the heart of Charleston a modern hotel. His plans
took into consideration not only facilities for the transient, but
grouped around that central idea, the moving picture, the cafe, the
pool room, the barber shop and the convention hall--in fact, all
those places and occasions at which the people "most do
congregate." Accordingly a splendid modern brick structure was
erected on Washington Street, near the old Capital site at a cost
of nearly two hundred thousand dollars. The work has been
departmentalized and a capable man put in charge of each unit, so
that Capt. Ferguson is left free to look after the constructive and
creative phases of the business without loss of motion or attention
to details. This is modern efficiency--but modern efficiency where
it has not been applied before. It is gratifying to be able to
record that the very first months operation showed a profit.

On August 27, 1914, Capt. Ferguson married Miss Lilly A. Foster.
Mrs. Ferguson was educated at Institute and was an accomplished
teacher. They have three children, Bess Louise, Ashton and Grace
Ferguson.

Capt. Ferguson is a Republican and has been active in the
councils of his party. He is a member of the Baptist church and
belongs to the Masons.